Allotments farmer given travel prize

A FARMER who turned a field into allotments has been chosen to study projects overseas.

Tamara Hall, managing director of Molescroft Farms Ltd, has been selected as the Yorkshire Agricultural Society’s Nuffield Scholar for 2013.

She has chosen community-supported agriculture as her subject and will travel to a project in Athens, which originally piqued her interest, as well as other initiatives in America, Japan and Scandinavia.

She set up a not-for-profit organisation to create a 65-plot community allotment on her land off the Beverley bypass earlier this year which already has 70 people on its waiting list.

Ms Hall, who is a member of the society’s council, said her interest began after reading a newspaper article about how farmers were renting small areas of land to families in Athens. The families decided what the farmers grew, guaranteeing a stable income, and the families had cheaper and better food.

She said: “Allotments are very popular and often oversubscribed and not everyone has the time or desire for one, so, as with the Athens project, community-supported agriculture might work well in the UK as an alternative. But you would need polytunnels to extend the growing season.”